Heatherden Hall, Pinewood Studios

Heatherden Hall is a stuccoed and painted brick building with a slate roof concealed behind a parapet, now forming part of Pinewood Studios.

The original villa, dating from before 1917, forms the south-eastern part of the present building and was roughly square on plan, with the entrance to the east and a small service courtyard to the north. Palatial extensions of 1917-19 increased the footprint to nearly 1700 square metres, more than four times the size of the earlier house.

The long south range contains a grand enfilade of rooms. Access is via a deep porte-cochère at the eastern end, leading to the entrance hall, inner hall and stair hall. Two large rooms, marked as drawing room and lounge on a plan of the late 1930s, overlook the garden to the south through a columned loggia. The main corridor leads west to the library (later the bar) and beyond it to a great double-height ballroom with a dais at the northern end. The swimming pool adjoins this, with changing rooms and a gallery at the south end and, to the north, a palm court and a former Turkish bath and squash court. The east range contained a billiard room, kitchens and service rooms. The first floor originally contained six main bedrooms and two bathrooms, with eight bedrooms at mezzanine level and seven guest bedrooms on the second floor, all now offices.

The exterior, designed by Seth Ward, displays French-Classical formality but loose Italianate composition, with each element given independent emphasis. The irregular east entrance front preserves vestiges of the older house, its principal feature being a deep porte-cochère with paired Doric columns.

The garden front extends thirteen bays arranged 1-4-3-4-1, almost symmetrically though the outer bays do not match. The centrepiece has a large triangular pediment and engaged half-columns flanking six-over-six pane sash windows, with smaller segmental pediments in the wings. A deep curving loggia with Doric colonnade fronts this elevation, with modern glazed infill.

The block hinging the south and west ranges is treated as a distinct pavilion with large round-arched French windows flanked by engaged columns and projecting tower-like corner bays on the west side. The ballroom range is lower, featuring two superimposed orders—three-quarter columns and French windows below, pilasters flanking oeil-de-boeuf windows above—with a crowning balustrade. The middle two bays break forward with festoon ornament, and the left-hand bay projects as a tower to balance those on the right.

Interior spaces are approached via a sequence. The entrance hall or lobby is panelled to full height with ornamental double doors and decorative plaster ceiling. The inner hall is double-height with a dramatic curved balcony and oval skylight. The stair hall beyond contains abundant plaster ornament, including Ionic pilasters and blind arcading at the upper level, with decorative balusters and richly-moulded tread-ends. This space once extended southward beyond a screen of two unfluted Ionic columns into a smaller crush hall, now part of the dining room.

The dining room overlooks the gardens to the south with large French windows opening into the loggia. Pairs of fluted Ionic columns and pilasters support a rich frieze and cornice and decorative plaster ceiling. The western bay contains a fireplace with a richly Classical surround and chimneypiece incorporating a painted canvas dated 1917, showing a young girl and three dogs.

The bar, formerly the gun room, is nearly square with windows facing south and east. It has a very large stone fireplace with flanking columns and a coloured heraldic escutcheon in relief. The walls feature raised and fielded panelling with glazed cupboards in the corners, and the ceiling has rich plaster decoration. It was converted to its present use in the 1930s, with the curved counter presumably dating from this period.

The ballroom runs the full length of the west range. It has a sprung oak floor and is panelled almost to full height, with pairs of giant fluted Ionic pilasters at the bay divisions. Along the west side are tall round-arched windows with circular openings above, an arrangement replicated in the blind arcading of the east wall. The two southern entrances are enclosed by elaborate openwork screens with Jacobethan ornament, presumably inserted during the 1930s reordering. The richly-moulded ceiling has a coved central section with palmette decoration. The northern end features a raised dais with a stone fireplace and chimneypiece similar to that in the library, with two tiers of small close-set pilasters in the surrounding panelling.

The swimming pool adjoins the ballroom, with changing rooms beneath a balustraded viewing gallery supported on a curved Doric colonnade at the south end. A raised platform at the northern end opens into the palm court, an octagonal space top-lit by a glazed dome with a central marble fountain and scallop shell, and corner niches on dolphin scroll-brackets. Alongside is the former Turkish bath, later converted into a bar.

Other interiors include a billiard room, service rooms, kitchens and numerous bedrooms and bathrooms now used as offices.

To the south of the main house, in front of the loggia, is a paved terrace with a stone balustrade and steps flanked by urns leading down into the formal gardens.